Wimsey got up quickly and disappeared into the next room. He took rather a long time, Parker thought. Mrs. Forrest was lying back in a collapsed attitude, but her breathing was more controlled, and she was, he thought, recovering her wits. “Making up a story,” he muttered savagely to himself. However, he could not, without brutality, press her at the moment.
Lord Peter, behind the folding doors, was making a good deal of noise, chinking the glasses and fumbling about. However, before very long, he was back.
“’Scuse my taking such a time,” he apologised, handing Mrs. Forrest a glass of brandy and soda. “Couldn’t find the syphon. Always was a bit wool-gathering, y’know. All my friends say so. Starin’ me in the face all the time, what? And then I sloshed a lot of soda on the sideboard. Hand shakin’. Nerves all to pieces and so on. Feelin’ better? That’s right. Put it down. That’s the stuff to pull you together. How about another little one, what? Oh, rot, it can’t hurt you. Mind if I have one myself? I’m feelin’ a bit flustered. Upsettin’, delicate business and all that. Just another spot. That’s the idea.”
He trotted out again, glass in hand, while Parker fidgeted. The presence of amateur detectives was sometimes an embarrassment. Wimsey clattered in again, this time, with more common sense, bringing decanter, syphon and three glasses, bodily, on a tray.
“Now, now,” said Wimsey, “now we’re feeling better, do you think you can answer our question, Mrs. Forrest?”
“May I know, first of all, what right you have to ask it?”
Parker shot an exasperated glance at his friend. This came of giving people time to think.
“Right?” burst in Wimsey. “Right? Of course, we’ve a right. The police have a right to ask questions when anything’s the matter. Here’s murder the matter! Right, indeed?”
“Murder?”
A curious intent look came into her eyes. Parker could not place it, but Wimsey recognised it instantly. He had seen it last on the face of a great financier as he took up his pen to sign a contract. Wimsey had been called to witness the signature, and had refused. It was a contract that ruined thousands of people. Incidentally, the financier had been murdered soon after, and Wimsey had declined to investigate the matter, with a sentence from Dumas: “Let pass the justice of God.”